


Keeping the Faith

by starraya



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-23 21:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9679262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: Bernie - I've practically slept on desert floors - Wolfe and Serena - I own 600 count thread sheets - Campbell go camping together.Fun ensues as Serena tries to stay positive.





	

“I can’t believe it,” Bernie gasped, “I’m living with a camping snob.”

 

“I’m . . . I’m not a camping snob. I just –”

 

“Prove it. Come on a camping trip with me.”

 

Why, Serena thinks now, did she agree? Why could she never resist a challenge? It was because of Bernie – I’ve practically slept on desert floors – Wolfe’s eager smile. Excitement Serena vowed she would mirror.

 

Even when Bernie booked a pitch without an electric hook-up.

 

“What if Jason needs me? What if there’s an Emergency?” Serena protested.

 

“It’s only three days. We’ll take portable chargers. For emergency, only, though. And I know you’ll want to ring Jason every day, so I checked. There’s a telephone box down the street from the site.”

 

And, despite such sacrifices that the whole ‘getting back to nature’ business meant, Serena got excited. Looked forward to spending time alone with Bernie, away from Holby, away from work, away from the pressures of daily life as a surgeon. Of daily life, full-stop.

 

Whether it was a villa on the Amalfi coast or a campsite in Wales, Serena knew location didn’t really matter. It was a holiday, with Bernie. Their first as a couple.

 

She couldn’t help her laughter when Bernie packed Scrabble – (“Sure you’re ready for that sort of competition, Miss Wolfe?) – and a packet of cards and poker chips – (“Sure you’re ready, Miss Campbell?”)

 

She still harboured a certain level of trepidation about the trip, knowing she’d have to exchange 600 hundred thread count sheets for a lumpy sleeping bag, a memory foam mattress for one prone to deflate 30 seconds after you inflated it. But Serena stayed positive. Bernie wanted this trip, was an ‘outdoorsy person’, who enjoyed these things (much to Serena’s disbelief). As they set off for the weekend, Serena was determined that she wasn’t going to bring Bernie’s good mood down.

 

And she doesn’t grumble once, not when the weather report announces expected blustery October showers and dropping temperatures, not when she remembers that she forgot her toothbrush – “it may be another country, but I’m pretty sure they have shops in Wales, Serena” – or when they journeyed into the countryside and the roads got very twister and narrower and if-a-car-comes-in-the-other-direction-this-is-going-to-be-very-interesting-indeed thinner and “Berenice Griselda Wolfe, if you don’t slow down this car right now, I will throw you off the cliff myself.”

 

She doesn’t frown, either, when their journey stops abruptly. They wait as a seemingly endless line of sheep cross the road. “Did you see a farmer?”

 

“No?”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Where on earth then – “

 

Bernie just gives a shrug of her shoulder. Mutters something that sounds like Wales under her breath.

 

The interruption means they don’t arrive at the campsite as dusk is settling. Campsite is a very loose word. It is more of a muddy field in the middle of nowhere. But no, Serena isn’t going to complain. Or she wasn’t until they pull up at their pitch – just another square of slightly less muddy grass – and it starts raining, thick and fast.

 

“Maybe, we should just . . . wait it out.”

 

“I don’t think this is the type of rain you wait out.” It looks like it’s staying for the weekend, is what Bernie means. “And, besides,” Bernie says, with a smile on her face that Serena feels is rapidly fading from hers, “we should get the tent up before night falls.”

 

“Can’t we just kip the night in here and put it up tomorrow?”

 

Bernie laughs before getting out the car. She thinks Serena is joking. Serena is, but only a bit.

 

Serena stays within the warmth of the car, but, when she sees Bernie unfurling the tent by herself in the now torrential downpour, she feels a stab of guilt. She promised herself. Think positive. And here she is, sulking like a petulant child. Wanting to write the camping trip before it has even begun. All because of a bit of rain.

 

She steps out the car, and does so with a bit too much positivity that she doesn’t look what she’s stepping into. “Serena, watch the –"

 

It’s too late. Mud swallows her feet. When she tries to yank them out, one by one, her right shoe doesn’t come up. It remains wedged in mud. She is left, one foot on ground, one, shoeless, hovering in the air, imitating a flamingo. Very badly. She should have concentrated more in that mindfulness yoga class, she thinks, before she loses her balance. Bernie rushes over, but not in time.

 

When she helps Serena up, all thoughts of positivity fly out of Serena’s head at an astonishing rate.

 

“For Christ’s sake,” she says.

 

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

 

“I’m fine, I just – “ She scowls, looking down at her muddied clothes and hands.

 

“It’s alright. I’ve got wipes in the –“

 

“What?”

 

“I’m kidding. This campsite has another across the road. There are shower and toilet facilities just over there. Let’s get you a fresh pair of clothes, hmm?” Bernie says.

 

Serena takes a deep breath. Positivity, she thinks.

 

-

 

After a long, surprisingly hot, shower and change of clothes, Serena is feeling decidedly more upbeat than before. She walks back, very carefully, in the wellingtons she had mercifully not forgotten, and sees that she had forgotten that Bernie occasionally did like to turn into Super Woman, and not just in theatre, when she sees that what was just sheets of fabric and pegs on the ground is now a, thankfully very sturdy looking, tent.

 

Serena kisses Bernie on the cheek. “Thank you.”

 

“Your very welcome.”

-

“Large portion of chips, vinegar. No salt,” Bernie says as she steps into the tent, grateful to get out the bad weather, “and just what the Doctor ordered.” She holds up a bottle of shiraz, trophy-like.

 

Serena looks up from where she is nestled up in a very thick sleeping bag (and a couple of blankets on top for good measure). “Where did you get that from?”

 

Bernie just taps her nose. Zips up the tent behind her. “I was worried for a moment. I mean we’re got plastic cups we can use, but I didn’t bring a corkscrew. And then I remembered you’re Serena Campbell.”

 

“I don’t know whether that’s meant to be a compliment or not.”

 

“Depends on if you have a corkscrew.”

 

“You know I do.”

 

Bernie grins. She fetched tea while Serena set up the things in the inside of the tent and a couple of lanterns – battery operated – cloak the space in a warm glow.

 

“Very homely,” Bernie says, crouching down to her knees.

 

“A girl does her best.”

 

“Loving the hat by the way, Cinderella.” She nods to the fluffy monstrosity on Serena’s head.

 

“My ears are cold. Heck, my everything’s cold. And will you stop calling me that.”

 

Bernie pouts.

 

Serena rolls her eyes. “Just because you fancy yourself as a Prince Charming, doesn’t mean – “

 

“But I did retrieve your shoe.”

 

“I didn’t lose it.”

 

“Sorry, yes,” Bernie holds her hands up, “you simply misplaced it.”

 

“Oh, come over here and sit down properly,” Serena huffs in mock-annoyance, “you’re making the place look untidy.”

 

Bernie settles down onto the air bed. “Certainly, your majesty.”

 

Serena swats Bernie with a pillow. Mumbles something about Bernie bringing in the cold with her.

 

“By the way,” Bernie smirks, “I think you look very snug, but if you do need some . . . warming up later, I’d be happy to help. Purely in the interest of you not catching pneumonia, of course.”

 

“I thought you’d never ask.”

 

-

 

Bernie is doing just that, sharing her body warmth so to speak and raising Serena’s own, when Serena hears something outside. All but yelps.

 

“What was that?”

 

Bernie is far too absorbed with other things to reply with anything other than a “Mmm” against Serena’s neck. Her lips suck at the soft skin there.

 

“There’s something outside,” Serena hisses.

 

“Probably just a sheep,” Bernie mumbles, “that’s wandered away from the field.”

 

“It did not sound like a –“

 

The rest dies on Serena’s lips. Bernie’s hand has wandered somewhere else as well. And she is particularly good at the art of distraction.

 

-

 

Later, when Serena is feeling the most positive she has about the camping trip, body sated and boneless and still thrumming with heat under Bernie’s own, Bernie takes her chance.

 

“Serena?”

 

“Mmm.”

 

“What do you think about caravanning?”

 

Serena groans, and not in a good way.

**Author's Note:**

> Commentd make a writer's day.


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